After Isabel Lerma graduated from Texas State Technical College, she started applying for jobs at auto paint and body shops around town. But she wasn’t being offered the type of job that matched up with her skills.
“It was kind of a struggle,” she said, “because of how the men were in charge. They would see me and think, ‘Oh, she’s not serious,’ and asked if I wanted to do insurance. So I basically backed out of all the interviews.”
That’s why she and her friend and classmate, Rocio Alvarez, decided to start their own business: Next Level Paint and Body.
Lerma earned an auto collision refinishing certificate in May 2025. Alvarez graduated last month with her associate’s degree in auto collision and refinishing specialization.
“She went the whole extra mile,” Lerma said of Alvarez.
“It was a long time. Two years,” Alvarez said. “But it’s worth it.”
Prior to opening their new paint and body shop, both women have worked in the auto industry. Lerma, 29, is a salesperson at University Mazda Kia. Alvarez, 25, works at Ralf’s Tires & Automotive in Waco, a shop started by her father, Rafael Alvarez, who died Dec. 27, 2022. The business remains family owned.
“I know my way around cars,” Alvarez said.
After graduating from Waco High School, she got a job working with her uncle at Caliber Collision in Roanoke. She would prep the cars before he painted them.
“I was the only girl there,” Alvarez said. “And the guys were like, ‘You gotta be easy on her.’ No. Treat me like a regular employee, because people make it seem like we don’t know what to do because we’re women.”
Alvarez moved back to Waco to be with her mother after her father passed.
Lerma graduated from Harmony Science Academy and lived in a few places around Texas, trying to figure out things, then decided a couple of years ago to attend TSTC to learn how to paint vehicles. And she did well. She won the Top Gun Award her first semester for excelling in painting and in her classwork.
“Then I got more interested in working on the car itself, being able to modify things,” she said. “I went ahead and did the collision side, and that was a lot of fun, too. I love to take something that has been broken and put it back together. Just doing that makes me feel good, and I don’t mind getting dirty. I like being in the shop.”
Still, painting is her first love.
“I’d like to do custom painting, like airbrushing,” she said. “I want to learn pinstriping.”
Lerma and Alvarez met at TSTC, and it was Lerma’s experiences during her job search that led to their new venture.
Body shop owners “didn’t want to give me a chance, basically,” she said. “That’s when we started talking and it was, ‘You know, we should just do our own thing.’”
Next Level Paint and Body is currently housed in a storage space in Hewitt. With both holding fulltime jobs, Alvarez and Lerma work on cars there at night and on the weekends. It’s a temporary home for their business until they can find their own permanent space.
“We’re doing small things starting off,” Lerma said. “It’s too cold right now to do anything, so come spring, we’re definitely having things lined.”
When the weather is more conducive to doing work in a space without electricity, the women are ready to go. They bought a generator, then ended up returning it to get a bigger one, a unit strong enough to operate their 80-gallon air compressor.
“And that was a struggle,” Lerma said, “trying to find the right one to supply the right air pressure to the (paint) guns, the filtration system, all of that was a mess. But we got everything to work and we know how to work everything and make sure it’s running.”
Alvarez said they’ve also purchased hammers, dollies, stud guns, cutting tools and other equipment to do the body work.
At her dad’s tire shop, Alvarez said she “saw cars with rims, like 26s, 28s, 30s. The cars are painted with candy paint, and I’m like, ‘Ooohh. I like how it looks.’”
She got a 2001 Chevrolet Tahoe for her 15th birthday, “and my dad slammed 30-inch rims on there and I had a 15-inch bass in the back it was just so old school and I fell in love with it,” she said.
Today, Alvarez’s ultimate ride would be what her father drove.
“A ’69 Ford Ranger. My dad always had those around because ’69 was his year of birth,” she said. “We have one right now and it’s painted candy blue. I think if I had that car, I would strip it all down and do graphics on there and a little bit of pinstriping and just buff everything out to make it shiny.”
If Lerma could have her dream car, it would be a Chevy Chevelle, from 1969 or ’71. She saw one when she was 12, and that helped spark her love of cars.
“It would be black cherry with some chrome rims,” she said. “I know that chrome is old school, but I would love that.”
Despite an early love for cars, neither Alvarez nor Lerma expected their career trajectory. When Alvarez was younger, she didn’t know what kind of career she was headed into.
“I had no idea. No idea,” she said. “I had no idea what the world was going to bring. I always wanted to own my own business, because I saw my dad’s business. I liked working with my hands and making cool stuff.”
Lerma had a completely different future in mind, with thoughts of going into social work or a career in child protective services.
“Serving others was something I really held close,” she said. “But doing this can translate into serving others, because a lot of people have sentimental value that they hold in the vehicle, or there’s a special moment. A lot of custom work is restoring old vehicles. I feel like that’s also serving others. So when I put it all together and I think about it, it’s like, I like this. It feels good. It feels right.”
